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The Zipp bar was crazy light ... it felt like paper mache or something. But it was way too narrow when I actually got it in my hands. It was 40cm measured o-o, which makes a big difference. I still have it, and it's brand new, so I'll put it up for sale here once I get around to taking a picture of it. (Let me know if you're intersted. ) The Ritchey SL II in 42cm c-c fits me much better, and I got it brand new on the 'bay for a song -- $132.50!! (And $76 for the Thompson Masterpiece seatpost from the same guy, also brand new ... both were take-offs). That was a good shopping day for yours truly.

strobbekoen -- thanks much. I'm looking forward to getting the bike done to see how these cables feel, particularly when braking. I sort of wonder if I should have just gone with i-links instead. Anyway, we'll see how close my calculations are when she's done and hanging from the scale!

In light of jvanj8's willingness to entrust his life on the descents in Mallorca to KCNC CB1 brakes, and my desire to get below 6.8, I took the plung and bought a set. Assuming the claimed 168g weight is accurate, that will be a savings of 143g over the Campy stuff, at $1.18 per gram saved. (Thanks, Sharky!) Not bad, especially as I should be able to recoup something for the Campy brakeset once I finish the build. Woop!

With that 143g calculated reduction, my fat little Fuji girl now ought to tip the scale around 6816.5g [15.0278101 lbs] ... but we shall see.

So, a little update here. I finally finished stringing the Yokozuna cables/housings. What a serious pain in the rear that was. First, the brake cable housings have barely enough tolerance to fit in the campy record brake end, before you cut them. After cutting them, even with a Dremel tool, you are going to have to play around a lot to get them in there. And if you screw up, there is very little allowance at all for redoing things. All I can say is, if you are planning to use the Yokozuna for Campy, you better get it done right the first time. Another thing to look out for: I cut the rear brake housing length too short (or rather too direct b/w the tob tube and the brake) and because of the stiffness of the housing, I could not get the Record brake to snap back into place after it was depressed, without turning in the frame. That said, as to both problems, everything worked much easier when I used it with the KCNC CB-1 brakes.

Also, I've picked up my saddle and tape, and decided on white for both: a white sella italia slr (couldn't find a kit carbonio at a decent price) which actually weighs in at 148g (vs. claimed 135g), and deda elemanti tape. So my build chart will need to be updated to reflect those choices. Now I just need to find an hour of uninterupted time to put it all together.

If anyone is reading this, what is the preferred method for securing the housings underneath the handlebar tape? Black electrician's tape? Or is there something lighter and better? I don't think you can just do the de minimis holding tape job with these Yokozuna housings, since they are so damn stiff they seriously resist conforming to the shape of the bars.

OK, seriously, I've really lost my freaking mind. I just bought a barely used set of Reynolds MV32T UL carbon tubulars. I am totally insane. My wife is going to skin me alive and sell what's left for science. I must be stopped. That said, I got them for $580, so I think I saved money in the long run, aye? Don't have them yet, but here's a stockist's photo to water the mouth a bit:

Best I can tell, they're about 1030g. My Euruses purport to be 1550g. No idea on the tires/tubes vs tubulars/glue, but I'm thinking I win there, too. Now I've got to figure out how to glue a tire. And did I mention I'm never going to get to ride this thing because my wife is going to defenestrate me? I'm a dead man. At least I should have no problem breaking the 6.8kilo threshold.

A little update on the travails of building a bike off ebay, and please forgive the quote from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which doesn't really fit, but I don't care because it's my favorite line in the movie and I don't get to use it enough....

So I recently bought, for $580 + $50 shipping -- a real steal -- a pristine set, absent decals, of Reynolds MV-32T ULs, which weigh 1000g, come with ceramic bearings, DT240s, handle heat very well, and are surprisingly aero. They retail for about $2000, and were released last year in 2009, so you can imagine my surprise when I won them for so little. They arrived already glued up with Vittoria Corsa Evo CX 290tpi tires and some 42g Token skewers -- bonus! -- and in perfect condition. So I put them on the scale, reduced the readout by the 540g attributed to the tires, and lo!, they cambe back at 1300g. Hmm. Can't possibly be 300g worth of glue on there. Long story short, they aren't ULs. But the MV-32T is still a great wheel, right? Worth the price even at 1190g, as it's still light, still comes with ceramic bearings, DT240 hubs, surprisingly aero, were released fairly recently around 2007, etc. But wait a minute, every picture I've ever seen of the MV-32T rim shows a plain rim. These have a crease along the bottom and additional carbon layup around the valve stem hole and the same on the opposite side of the rim as a counterweight. Hmmm. Well, long story short again, it turns out they aren't MV32Ts, either. Nope, after much homework, I've purchased a top shape set of 2005 Reynolds CIRRO Mid-V tubulars. Now, that's still a good wheel, too, but far from the great deal I thought I found (200grams heavier, much older, with none of the recent upgrades Reynolds has made to the 32mm wheelset and hubs). Not really what I was looking for on the build, at least not at that price. So back to the seller they go. Take away: ebay can be great, but you've got to be on your game.

Funny you should ask. We were all set for me to ship them back and get refunded the whole price, including shipping. But to be honest, I started getting a little attached to them, or at least my weight calculations with them on the bike. And when I began thinking about the difficult and time-consuming prospect of trying to locate a <1199g carbon, quality ~32mm tubular wheelset that has <300 miles on the set (not to mention lightweight ti skewers + Vittoria Evo Corsa CX tires, which came with these) all for what I paid here, I figured I just as well ought to keep them a season or two despite the mix up. So, I'm going with the 05 Cirro's after all, which by all reports remain a great set of wheels. The good news is, since I finally straightened all this out this morning, I'm now dead-set on finishing the project this weekend! I've got to torque a few bolts, smear some grease and locktite here and there, attach the chain and dial in the drivetrain, which I've never done from scratch before, wrap the bars, and get my riding position squared, but that's it. I'll try to get some pics and a prelim ride report up by Sunday night, assuming something else doesn't go wrong with the build (knock on wood)!

I bought the frame early November. I began to select parts piecemeal as the wallet and the door warden permitted. I managed to tinker on it in fits and starts, primarily half hour increments after the toddler went to bed. So it’s taken about seven months, but I’m happy to report that the build is finally done. This was my first bike build ever, and I’ve put nearly 100 miles on it since. I'm thrilled with the result.

First things first. The weight! I do not fish or otherwise own a hanging scale, so I measured the mass of the final build in three steps, employing the additive property of mathematics to solve for X ....

Figure 1. Everything except wheel assembly: 4525g

Figure 2. Rear wheel/tire/skewer/etc.: 1252g

Figure 3. Front wheel/tire/skewer/etc.: 831g

Item 1 + Item 2 + Item 3 = A Grand Total of 6608g / 14.5681463 lbs

Yeah, suck it, 2010 Dogma! Just kidding. We love the Dogma. But I’m very satisfied with the final tally given the weight of the frame and fork here. Frankly, the wheelset was the saving grace, as I wouldn’t have broken 6.8kg with the Eurus set up. (If you’ve followed this thread, you’ll have read that I bought a set of Reynolds 32mm tubulars, which I’ve since confirmed are the Cirro Mid V, produced circa 2005-2006. They weigh somewhere in the vicinity of 1200g. I figure I’ll keep them for a while, and maybe in a season or two pop for a set of Zipp 303s or Reynolds DV46 ultralite whatevers.)

So, the preliminary ride assessment. I’ve put about 90 miles on the bike, and climbed about 3000 feet so far. In a word, it's awesome. The ride is smooth, and the power transfer feels super efficient. Also, I must say, the shifting is amazing – no misses, powerful and near instantaneous shifts. I don’t know how much that is aided by the Yokozuna housings, or is more a reflection of the advancement of Record from my older Veloce, but ... wow! Also, I am loving the Campy UT crankset. It spins along smoothly and effortlessly, and it’s super stiff when you bang it (again especially when compared to the crap Bontrager Race Light crankset on my other bike, which I hate). The whole bike, frame/drivetrain/BB feels stiff and effecient. This is particularly meaningful on the climbs. I don’t have much of a data-set available to me yet, but so far I’ve been pretty amazed at the improvement. With this build I've moved from a Compact to a full 53/39, while running the same 12-25 in the rear, and so far my concerns about that change were entirely misplaced. In fact, I find myself on familiar climbs in the same or a smaller rear cog than I run with the Compact. Whether it’s a result of the ~5 lbs I dropped in bike weight, or the manifold efficiency increases I’ve gained with the new equipment, or some psychological effect of the new toy, I don’t know, but let’s just say the combination seems to be good for at least 5-6 teeth worth of drivetrain leverage over my old setup.

My “complaints” such as they are, are minor. First, the KCNC CB-1’s braking (swisstop yellows on carbon rims) is not as solid as the soviet-style Campy Veloce with aluminum clinchers, and the front squeels a bit, too, all pretty much as expected. (It probably also is a bit of overkill for a brakeset like the CB-1s to be mated to the compressionless Yokozuna housings, but who konws.) Nonetheless, I’m already used to the brakes, and I probably need to adjust the toe-in a bit anyway. Plus, they definitely stop the bike just fine, even on a couple 40mph descents I played with today. Second, the ride is not nearly as cushy-comfortable as you can imagine it was on my steel-framed, slack-geometried Sarthe, again as one might expect from a race bike. I figured with the relatively wide wheelbase (982.3mm on the 52cm frame), it would be a bit of a sedate ride, but not at all. It descends very solid, but it’s also nimble and very stiff, and simply put, will buck you if you're not paying attention when you hit a bump or pothole.

As to fit, it feels pretty good right out of the box, but I do feel like my weight might be a bit forward – the rear brake has locked the rear wheel a couple time (could be a result of the lesser amount of modulation then I'm used to, though), and I feel a bit further over the front in out of saddle efforts then I prefer. Not sure I like the shape of the drops on the Ritchey Superlogic II bars, either. But I’ve hardly got any time on the bike yet, so I’m sure I’ll square all that away.

Finally, the wheelset – 05 Reynolds Cirro Mid-V (32mm). Well, I’ve got to admit, I really like them so far. They’re light, they spins up fast, and they’re stiff as hell. I can also say the rims can take a hit. I pounded a nasty pothole straight on today doing over 30mph, and the front remains perfectly round and true. So that transaction actually ended better than originally I thought it would.

There's also some amateur-hour in the build for sure. I didn't do the greatest wrap job in the world, I've got a few cable ends that are not as neatly clipped as they should be, and for all I know I've probably installed some random part somewhere backward. But see my sig line.

So, anywho, I'm more than happy. To wrap up, here’s a couple picture sets of the finished build, both immediately afterward and then with 90 miles of fairly hard riding this weekend (and lookee, I already lost one of my bar-end plugs):

Set One, Before:

Set Two, After:

And, finally, a few from her maiden voyage late last week down around the Nation's capitol (the USA's, that is, for those of you who subscribe to other sovereignities!):Obeiscence to the memorial of a great President.

I've loving the picture at the White House with the forlorn walk of the suit... head hanging looking at the ground... wishing he had a cool bike and the day off probably Did your squealing brakes settle down? I remember my Assaults were awful at first but after the pads broke in a little, all was well. I tried toe-in but actually parallel was the best setup. If they make noise, I usually just loosen the pads, then position them again (same way) and the noise is gone.

So I have put about 250 miles/15,000ft elevation on the build. I'm still loving it, uphill and down. Interestingly, I saw a guy yesterday on the same frame -- not a very common bike to stumble across. Mine was much lighter, though.

Also, just because I haven't spent any money on the bike in a month, in a moment of weakness last night I ordered a few finishing pieces from Fairwheel Bikes: the "shoot out" FWB top cap (would have gotten the extralite one, but didn't want to bogart jvanv8's favorite lady friend), a set of KCNC rear der pulleys w/ceramic bearings, and a Soul Kozak seatpost clamp. That ought to drop another 40g or so from the build. I'm also playing with the idea of picking up a set of ceramics for the UT cranks, and a Far and Near chain catcher (I actually dropped my chain shifting from the big to little ring on a hill yesterday -- no harm done, but I'd hate to chew up the frame if I do that again).

I haven't fixed the front brake squeel entirely, but it's not too bad and only hits when I'm really braking hard. Also, I sort of like having something to put peds and cars on notice that I'm around and stopping. I also haven't mounted the computer and cadence monitor yet -- I've just been hauling my Garmin unit around in my jersey. Once I get around to that and pick up a few more doodads I'll get a final weight for the build.

Oh, I did finally find a seemingly reliable source for the unmounted/unglued weight of the '05-06 Reynolds Cirro wheels: 1175g. That seems about right based on what mine came in at when shod with tires/glue/stans/skewers.

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